What happens if you just stop for a moment?

Leave some space in your life. Space to soak in what’s happening to you right now, space to think, to dream, to feel, space for the next breath of your life to enter your body.

In a startup, a strange paradox often occurs. We’re doing what we love. We love our work so much that we spend all of our time working. Our mind tells us that if we stop the world will fall apart.

Does it?

If this is you - http://runningastartup.tumblr.com/post/22329143680/when-i-get-home-from-a-14-hour-day-im-like - schedule some whitespace in your calendar. What happens?

What does being charismatic mean to you?

That ‘x’ factor that some people have, they’re instantly attractive, and able to exert influence, to be persuasive. You can make the greatest logical argument in the world and, if you’re not charismatic, you’re not likely to convince anyone.

So what can you do to be charismatic?

For the answer to that, we can go all the way back to Aristotle. I’m a failed actor so I was fortunate enough to be handed his ‘Poetics’ in first year uni/college (it’s the masterwork on storytelling and performance).

Aristotle taught us that the 3 things a speaker needs to be persuasive are:

• logos (logical argument);
• pathos (emotional connection); and
• ethos (credibility).

If you’re a technology entrepreneur, chances are you’re pretty good at the logos part. It has nothing to do with charisma anyway, so I’m going to focus on the parts that do: pathos and ethos.

Pathos makes you charismatic. It is charisma that you generate by creating an emotional connection with your audience. Ethos also makes you charismatic. It is charisma bestowed upon you by your audience. Pathos + Ethos = Charisma².

I’m going to use a VC meeting to illustrate the 2 easy steps to charisma.

Let’s get the scariest one out of the way first: pathos. Even if you’re a robot, you have no emotion, that’s cool. You can still make an emotional connection with people in one easy step: be vulnerable. There is scientific evidence that shows the single most important action you need to take to connect with another human being is to be vulnerable (video of world’s expert on that very subject giving a TED talk: Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability).

Okay, I hear you say, now how the hell do I be vulnerable?

I’m not telling you to collapse in a river of tears at your next VC meeting; that would probably be a really bad idea (and you’re a robot, right, so you can’t cry anyway). What you can do is reveal something about yourself, a failure, perhaps the first 20 attempts you made at solving that massive problem you’ve now solved. That’s actually a 3-for-1. You reveal that you’re human (you make a connection), you also tell a story of your perseverance (great for your ethos – see below) AND the VC understands just how difficult the problem is that you’ve just solved (great lead in to the secret sauce slide).

Got it? Good, that’s step 1. Let’s move onto step 2: ethos.

Ethos, or credibility, is about your character. It’s the reason why VCs will invest in a proven entrepreneur despite a bad business idea. People with ethos have charisma bestowed upon them. People trust pretty much anything they have to say because of who they are.

Okay, great, so you don’t know any VCs who think you’re so awesome that they’re willing to throw $40 million at you. You could spend a bunch of time building your online cred (ethos) but your opportunity is now. So, you need to create some ethos now and here’s an old trick you can use called the rule of threes. Writers know that repeating the same content three times really makes it stick in people’s minds.

To continue with the example of the VC meeting, there are always three clear opportunities to create ethos. The first occurs before the meeting, when you send through your exec summary. This document should always highlight your key achievements. The second opportunity occurs at the start of the meeting. When you introduce yourself, tell a story that reinforces the most relevant of your key achievements. The third opportunity to create ethos happens at the team slide. You guessed it: you get to reiterate your key achievements. Put the same key achievements on the slide that you have in your exec summary and highlight the key achievement from the story you told by stating it, out loud, clearly and succinctly. In my last company, I used to put the team slide up front because the former CEO of Coke Europe and Asia was my Chair. Instant ethos.

I’m not going to tell you that this is an instant substitute for having steered a company to a successful IPO but I guarantee that it will be at least a +1 boost to your ethos and therefore your charisma.

To be charismatic, it really is as simple as:

1. Creating pathos; and
2. Creating ethos.

If you want to learn more about being charismatic, or pitching and speaking in general, I’m developing a workshop that I’ll be delivering both in person and via webinar. Drop me a note to register your interest.

The first Angel Investor ever to believe in me, Mark Jeffries, taught me to celebrate the victories when they come.

When I closed my first ever round of non-3F (friends/family/fools) funding, Mark sent me the following lyric from the famous Australian band, Crowded House (yes my NZ mates, I know that Neil Finn is a Kiwi but Crowded House was from Melbourne ):

the taste of success only lasts a half an hour or less,
but it loves you when it comes….

There are a lot of challenging times in any start up company so you want to make sure you feel the sweet joy of your successes. They’ll power you up and give you hope when times get tough.

At the same time, don’t believe your own press. Just because you won this time, doesn’t mean that you did everything right. Mining victories for learning is much harder than cataloging the learning in losses. When we get a positive result, we humans tend to fool ourselves into thinking we did everything right in the lead up. The more you can learn from victories, the less you’ll be forced to learn from the losses, which will inevitably come….

When something brings us pleasure, we often pursue it to the point that it brings us pain and when something brings us pain, we often fight it so hard that it brings us even more pain. Equanimity comes from being able to be with whatever arises, moment to moment.

A mentor once told me that it’s a CEO’s job to remain calm, through the roller coaster ride that is start up life, so that your staff don’t panic. That said, your staff are (hopefully) not stupid. If you feel like shit and you’re faking ‘happy’ they’ll see right through you. You might even lose their trust. Being unauthentic is not a good long term relationship building tactic.

So what can we do instead?

The shortest distance between here and where you want to be isn’t always a straight line. It’s okay to feel pain. Sometimes it’s necessary to get where you want to go. Pretending that you’re not hurting isn’t going to help the pain go away. Actually allowing yourself to face frustration, sadness, anger, shame, or fear allows you to become conscious of the obstacles you face, internal and external. This insight deepens the learning and, the more you allow the learning to happen, the faster and more powerfully the shift will occur. When that change comes, you’ll experience a release that brings energy to make the next move towards success. Yes, failing really can be more of a power up than victory!

Let yourself feel each moment. That is a fulfilling life. Know that after the losses there will be victory once more. You never feel the same from moment to moment. Change is the only thing that’s permanent, especially in a start up

If you’re looking for someone to celebrate the victories, process the losses, and deepen the learning from both, contact me for a free envisioning session.

What is important to you and your company? What inalienable truths will you declare and hold yourself and your team accountable to?

The declaration of independence from Great Britain by the United States of America was the defining moment in the nation’s history (quite literally ).

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These powerful words have driven the success of the US for nearly 250 years. They created a vision for what America and Americans would do, and what America and Americans would be, forever more. Every action that the country takes can be held accountable to this vision. The founders made it clear that Americans would pledge their lives to these words:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The declaration of independence gives Americans a confidence in taking action, in knowing the right actions to take and the right ways to be an American (even if we might disagree with them sometimes).

We don’t have a document like the declaration of independence in Australia.ⁱ We don’t have a bill of rights, any clear vision or statement by the people for who we are as a nation. Our constitution puts the English sovereign, currently Queen Elizabeth II, at the head of state.

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland…

There are 2 massive problems with these words:

• Less than 50% of Australians believe in God; and
• More than 50% of Australians believe that Australia should be an independent republic.

These words define Australia and yet have little to do with what Australians believe. Australia is a great nation, ‘doing great’ (for my Australian friends, that’s American for doing very well ), in the midst of a global economic downturn that has left it as arguably the strongest developed economy in the world, but talk to an Australian and they’ll tell you, “the country’s fucked.” (for my American friends, yes, Australians do swear a lot )  I believe that Australia’s lack of confidence could, at least in part, be solved by a legal expression of what’s important to Australia, which governs the country’s vision for itself as an independent republic.

So what has all of this got to do with entrepreneurship?

Your mission statement is your declaration of independence. It expresses what’s important to you and your company and provides clear guiding principles for every decision you make, from negotiating the acquisition of your company right down to deciding whether a phone call is important enough for you to interrupt the work you’re currently doing. Taking action quickly, failing fast, learning from your mistakes, and taking the next action, is so important to success in a start up. AND it is SO much easier to make decisions when you’re clear about what’s important to you.

Want some help clarifying your mission? Contact me for a free 30 minute envisioning session via phone or voip. Declare your independence!

I’m off for beers and a barbie – it’s the Australian and American way